Mad Lemmey's Painting Blog

++Report 31-01-23. Hadley's Hope/LV426 outside Rad zone +++ +++ Xenomorph clean up continues. Herding two know packs into Rad Zone for 'processing'. +++ +++Scavengers encountered in rubble and co-opted to assist.+++ +++ Motion trackers have found significant new signals, movement pattern does not suggest usual Xenomorph, all signs are of violent advance on our position with shooting and screaming +++ +++ Engaging +++ Martyn very kindly enquired if I would like a game of Xenos Rampant, I jumped at the chance, as I have many and various Sci-fi figures and had no real time to use them. But what to use? The answer was simple, my Colonial Marines . A few figures short of a full detachment, but I have enough Hasslefree S targrave 'randomness' to cover that. My force, very simple, HQ squad - Light Infantry, no upgrades. Command roll (tbc) Two squads of Armour piercing, Machine Gun armed Heavy infantry Psi scavenger squad- Light infantry with a Gamma level psionic with...

 A wee while back, it was the first MeG competition of the year, Ice and Fire (renamed by some Dice and Dire) at Battlefield Hobbies in Daventry . The theme is any non-European lists but it is also traditionally the last run out of the previous year's army lists before any changes come into effect. I chose my Hausa as they were are one of the most colourful and fun lists I possess, and deserved a run out. This was my first competition in six months, I had no illusions of any decent results, I was just going along to play. My aim was to have fun, maybe get a good winning game for the weekend, and to get Hausa another mention in Paul's rankings database !  My list: Lot's of decent cavalry, one unit VERY decent cavalry, some odd tribal infantry (not as odd s some that stayed in the box, unprotected long spear with shield cover?), a drilled infantry, many allied superior cavalry and camels, some allied average camels and cows! A great fun list, as long as you don't meet ...

Game two, after luch, began. I was not quite the bottom of the heap, but must have been pretty close. Mattered not, as I was there to have fun. Early Selucid, Simon Cooper's beautiful army, full of pike blocks, catafracts long spears and... and... possibly elephants. This was going to be a HARD fight for my cavalry forces then! Not only is Simon a great painter, he's also a lovely bloke, so this game was always going to be a scream. Terrain fell to the flanks on the African plains. A growth of camel friendly scrub abutted the river to the right, a village pinned us in on the left, while rocky ground lurked beyond, anchoring the Selucid flanks perfectly. I chose to ambush some archers and my decent spears in the village, the third card in the scrub was a dummy. Basically, ambushing the infantry was to keep them safe and my archers would never actually appear, so happy with their little patch they were. My cavalries held the left, with my guard cavalry and cows angled right, my ...

 Game three, and Peter Cross's Ming Chinese. Oh look, decent cavalry, polearmed armed infantry, artillery AND elephants. The perfect anti-cavalry force. Drat. Did no one bring a nice, soft, unprotected loose foot army?  Oh well! Peter is a lovely bloke and this was going to be a great match. Terrain, what terrain? All on the right, few pieces of scrubby ground, a rocky hill that my archers gladly stood upon to admire the view, and that was it. Peter massed his cavalry on the left, and a line aof very solid infantry with many crossbows, pole arms and artilerry pieces on teh right. Behind lurked a line of very sof t and squashy infantry, guarding the camp. My plan: refuse the infantry, do something suicidal with the cavalry and camelry, duck those 4(!) elephants coming my way rather too quickly, avoid every battery of artillery the infantry all had. Honestly, as a cavalryman, this is where you DO NOT want to be! The sun shines on the righteous as we advance. My Tuaregs sits bac...